Waikīkī is now a miasma of concrete and asphalt, its waters drained into a canal dividing tourist from resident. The mountain’s springs and waterfalls, trickle where they are allowed to flow, and left stagnant elsewhere, pullulate with staphylococcus. In the uplands, the fields and have long been dismantled, their rock terraces and heiau looted to build the walls of multi-million dollar houses with panoramic Diamond Head and/or ocean views
Compared to the first stanza which was full of native Hawaiian, the second begins to limit the use of native language and instead consists mostly of mainland English. The third and last stanzas are entirely void of Hawaiian, possibly symbolic of how Hawaii was itself stripped of its nature and culture for the appeasement of tourists.